This Sethos is evidently the Ethiopian Tirhaka. The latter was the successor of an Ethiopian, as Sethos is represented to have been, and it was natural that the Ethiopian should despise the soldiers of Egypt, whom his predecessor had conquered. His depriving them of their land, and consequently of their political importance, was the natural policy of a king who reigned over them by right of conquest; but, as he was a good and beneficent monarch, who had encouraged the arts and internal prosperity of the country, of which we have a proof in his restoring and embellishing the temples, the merchants, artificers, and labourers hastened to his support, being attached to his person by the advantages they had derived from his government. The title of priest is not inappropriate to an Ethiopian king, who was chosen from that order. Diodorus also informs us how much they were under the influence of their priests, submitting even to death itself at their command. Besides the coincidence of the time in the list of Manetho, there is no mention of a king called Sethos, except the first of the 19th dynasty, which was long previous. These circumstances alone almost prove that the Sethos of Herodotus and the Ethiopian Tirhaka are the same; but we have still stronger evidence. The king against whom both marched was the same Sennacherib, King of Assyria, and they are both delivered in the same manner; that is, by a miracle. Herodotus states Pelusium, not Jerusalem, as the scene of their discomfiture. This circumstance made me at first imagine that Sennacherib might have been defeated at both places; but I conceive it more reasonable to attribute these differences of name, place, and the nature of the miracle to the usual confusion of Herodotus, who did not compile his work, like Manetho, from the sacred registers preserved in the temples, but from verbal communications with the priests; perhaps the story of the mice was invented by Herodotus, or his informers, or, at all events, arose in the lapse of time, to explain the manner in which the Deity interfered in their behalf.
The Tirhaka, then, of the monuments and of Manetho, is the Sethos of Herodotus, and the Tirhaka who assisted Hezekiah against Sennacherib. From these various accounts, and by separating, in the narrative of Herodotus, the probable from the marvellous, we may conclude that the monarch was pious, since he bore the title of priest, and applied to the divinity for support before he set out on the expedition; that he was powerful, since he was not only able to hold in subjection the entire valley of the Nile, but also to carry his arms to the assistance of his neighbours. He appears, also, to have been an enlightened and an able legislator, since he encouraged the arts; and although a foreigner, had so ingratiated himself with his people, that, strong in their affections, he was not only able to destroy the military despotism of the soldiery, but raise another army, to wage war against the powerful king of Assyria. Eratosthenes (see Strabo[68],) states that this conqueror proceeded as far as the Pillars of Hercules.
There is another king mentioned in the Bible, as reigning in Egypt twelve years before the defeat of Sennacherib. It is agreed, almost by all, that he is the Shabatok or Sevechus of the lists; but this is so learnedly and ingeniously discussed by Signor Rosellini, that I make no apology for enriching this chapter with a translation of his remarks. At the seventeenth chapter of 2 Kings, it is related that Shalmaneser, king of the Assyrians, subdued and made tributary Hoshea, king of Israel. That prince having wished to rebel, and having sent for aid to So, king of Egypt, Shalmaneser besieged, conquered, and made him prisoner. The reign of Hoshea over Israel lasted nine years; so that it appears to have happened in his sixth year, that, to throw off the Assyrian yoke, he demanded assistance from the king of Egypt. Therefore, as Shalmaneser besieged and took Samaria in that year, which was the last of Hoshea, Hezekiah began to reign over Judah in the third year of Hoshea; and in the 14th year of Hezekiah occurred the discomfiture of Sennacherib, in which the Pharaoh Tirhaka took part, as the ally of the king of Judah. The sixth year of Hoshea (in which he demanded aid of So, king of Egypt,) corresponds to the third year of the reign of Hezekiah; and since this latter king, in the 14th year of his reign, made a treaty with Tirhaka, it follows that the Pharaoh, called So in the Bible, preceded Tirhaka by an interval of not less than eleven years. But So is called king of Egypt, and Tirhaka was the same; therefore we ought to seek the Pharaoh So among the kings of this Ethiopian dynasty. And since he preceded Tirhaka by an interval of eleven years, we must necessarily recognise him as the immediate predecessor of Tirhaka, who is called by Manetho Sevechus, or Sebichus, and, according to Eusebius, reigned twelve years. Not less manifest than the coincidence of the years is the correspondence of the name in Manetho and the Bible, if we correct the pronunciation according to the true sound of the Egyptian language. I have already mentioned, that the name of Shabatok (so the Sevechus of Manetho is written upon the monuments) may truly, indeed, be considered as a peculiar word of the Ethiopian dialect, which corresponds to the Egyptian Sevek. Sevek is, in the Egyptian mythology, a god, who has attributes relative to the Nile, and is generally represented under the sacred symbol of a crocodile. In this form its name is usually written
ⲥ ⲃ ⲕ “Sebek, Sevek;” but when it is represented under a human form, then it is written simply
or
ⲥ ⲃ “Seb, Sewe.” The titles, attributes, and forms of those two names, Sewe and Sebek, are promiscuous; and we are certain, that, however it is written or pronounced, it means the same divinity.[69]
Let us take, therefore, from the Hebrew text, the name of the king of Egypt, to whom Hoshea sent for help. It is written סוא: disregarding (particularly in a foreign language) the corrupt pronunciation given to it by Masorete, and the other interpreters, who read So or Soa, and Sua, let the least learned in the languages of the East judge, if the natural pronunciation of these Hebrew elements be not Sewa or Sewe. This is sufficient to show, that the author of the second book of Kings wrote that name with those characters which could give the pronunciation of the Egyptian name Sewe. It is probable that the same name, written upon the monuments in the Ethiopian manner, Shabatok, was commonly called by the Egyptians, Sewe; and, perhaps, they pronounced it also, indifferently, Sewek, since both these words were the designation of the same divinity, to which that name belongs. In fact, Manetho wrote in his history, Sevechus, and, cutting off the Greek termination, it remains Sevek, retaining, from the Ethiopian Shabatok, the pronunciation used in Egypt. Thus the text of the Bible, also, in relating this Egyptian name, maintains that possible orthographic exactness which it has followed in writing all the other Egyptian names. The original monuments, therefore, and the lists of Manetho concur in attesting that the dynasty of the Ethiopians was composed of three kings, whose names I have mentioned, and thus correct the Greek historians who have assigned it to Sabaco only.